The House and the Senate are in recess until Nov. 14 and the vice presidential candidates debate tonight. Here is your weekly insight: The Obama administration is illegally trying to keep Obamacare alive. Congress set in motion a massive spending binge and then left town. Also, a D.C. Council committee is expected to vote on physician-assisted suicide. Take notes, we have the best conservative policy recommendations right here.—Michelle Cordero, Managing Editor, Heritage.org

Hey President Obama, that's illegal.On Friday, the Government Accountability Office—the federal government's watchdog—found that the Obama administration has been breaking the law to keep Obamacare afloat. To keep health insurers from dropping out of Obamacare, the Health and Human Services Department raided $2 billion in taxpayer funds intended to pay down the deficit and dealt it out to health insurers. Paul Winfree, director of Heritage's Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies and Richard F. Aster fellow, said the report confirmed the Obama administration has been "illegally stiffing the American taxpayer in order to prop up the crumbling Obamacare system."

Get ready for a spending binge on Capitol Hill.Before leaving town, Congress passed a bill that funds government until Dec. 9. Their actions set the stage for more out-of-control spending during a lame-duck session, when many members of Congress no longer are accountable to the American people. It is immoral for lawmakers who might be retiring or voted out of office to pass substantive legislation that does not represent the will of the people. Read Heritage's report on the implications of lame-duck sessions.

Liberals want to make the District of Columbia "a place to die with dignity."The D.C. Council's Committee on Health and Human Services is expected to take up a measure Wednesday that would offer the option of assisted suicide to terminally ill adults. Heritage's William E. Simon fellow, Ryan Anderson, has warned that legalizing physician-assisted suicide is a mistake because it has the capacity to endanger the weak and vulnerable, corrupt the practice of medicine and the doctor-patient relationship, compromise family and caretaker commitments, and betray human dignity and rights before the law. Read Anderson's powerful report.

HAPPENING AT HERITAGE

Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, look for Heritage's booth at the 24th State Policy Network Annual Meeting in Nashville, Tennessee.

Wednesday at noon, Edwin Meese III, former U.S. attorney general and Heritage's Ronald Reagan distinguished fellow emeritus, and Judge William H. Pryor of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit will discuss the 30th anniversary of Meese's speech on "The Law of the Constitution," which was part of a series of speeches advancing a jurisprudence of originalism. Watch online here.

Thursday at 11:15 a.m., Mike Needham, CEO of Heritage Action for America, will discuss the state of conservatism on Facebook Live. Watch online here.